Posts Tagged ‘New York City’

I found an article on the blog of Cole Giordano, a photographer and skater who was featured in the piece and more recently in Freshly Pressed. It was about the skateboarding scene in the Hudson Valley and the pros and cons of the sports popularity. It made me think about my relationship with the sport. You can read the article in the November/December 2011 issue of The Hook.

Despite the title of this post, skateboarding has always been cool to me, and I actually got into as it started to become more popular. As much as I enjoyed all the action sports broadcasts on TV and the availability of skatewear (I’ve always liked the fashion aesthetic), I miss how it was sort of a secret passion of mine. While I never hid my love of action sports, I embraced the fact that few people knew about the X Games. It gave me an opportunity to introduce them to something different. Now the response is more like, “Oh, you’re into skateboarding. That’s… unexpected” and the person has already judged you for liking something “extreme”. I also really hated how the popular girls suddenly found skater guys attractive and how suddenly skater girls had to change their image to be more appealing (read: feminine).

The Hook article reminded me of a piece in the Dallas Observer about how skateboarding has drastically changed throughout the years. I had no idea that Dallas had a skate scene, and it was interesting to learn how skateboarding had gone from an underground sport to a P.E. elective as it relates to my city. It’s a good history lesson for anybody curious about skate culture.

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